Smoke-filled plane's emergency landing

Terrified passengers thought they were going to die when their smoke-filled plane had to make an emergency landing yesterday.

The 56 people on board the Flybe flight were told to get into the brace position as the crew put on smoke hoods.

The incident came just hours after the Toronto crash, where an Air France plane skidded off the runway and burst into flames.

Their terror was short-lived as the De Havilland Canada Dash 8 was able to land safely within minutes.

Yesterday's drama unfolded after flight BE282 took off from Birmingham for Edinburgh. There was already a 'degree of apprehension' following the Air France crash in Canada, said passenger Brian Goldthorpe. 'A smoke detector was heard bleeping and a blue haze was at the front of the cabin,' he added.

As more grey smoke started to fill the cabin, the pilot told passengers to 'familiarise themselves with the brace position' as he was about to carry out an emergency landing.

Student Leyla Turkoglu said: 'I thought to myself, "This is a horrible way to die". 'The girl in front of me was sobbing, not hysterically but she was obviously upset.

The old lady sitting next to me held my hand and you could see people shaking. Others were joking and saying, "Oh well".'

The plane landed safely 12 minutes later at Leeds Bradford Airport. No one was injured but one elderly woman was taken to hospital for stress.

Mike Rutter, Flybe sales and marketing director, said: 'This was caused by smoke, not a fire, from an engine.'

The aircraft has been taken out of service for engineers to investigate. A new plane took passengers on to Edinburgh although Ms Turkoglu took the train instead. She said: 'I've had enough flying for one day.'